


The Lily and The Sea

by DeviantRhapsode



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Romance, Some Humor, Some angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-25 20:22:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3823522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeviantRhapsode/pseuds/DeviantRhapsode
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Update: The Title of this work has been changed!</p><p>She comes to him the nights he doesn't light the candle. Thinking she's nothing more than a dream, he runs from his nightmares by seeking solace in her arms. But it isn't long until curiosity begins to get the better of him, and members of Inquisitor's inner circle really don't seem to be helping matters at all...</p><p>This is a Fill for a kmeme prompt requesting a smutty retelling of Psyche and Eros. Six planned chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He Tests the Chains

Today was one of his bad days.

He could feel the rush and flow of pain behind his eyes, its pulsing coming in jagged waves, as unyielding as the sea. The pain amplified the sounds of practicing soldiers in the courtyard below, of scouts walking the battlements, until they were not the faded footsteps of his soldiers, but the cresting and crashing of steady waves that beat upon his concentration. The condition was not alleviated, in any way, by Varric's sudden appearance in his office two hours prior, whereupon he began to regale Cullen with some of the more obscure...and more fantastical...tales he left out of his book about Hawke.

"So there we were, finest opera wear torn dramatically to shreds, building burning behind us, and everyone is looking at the Marquis, who'd gone entirely pale. Then Broody says, in his most serious voice..."

Meanwhile, he had hours of work, troop movements to plan, reports to review, and it would be impossible to do that reliably if the steady swell of his headache was slowly washing away the fragments of his sanity. The withdrawal from lyrium felt like it was killing him more quickly these days than it did during that very first month.

Varric cleared his throat and adopted a comically deep, rumbling timbre. "'It seems the victor is clear. The bear may claim the Duchy.' You know, I think that's the moment Hawke decided to fall in love with him? She always denied it, though..."

Cullen's left eyebrow had started to twitch. His headache...and annoyance...was building rapidly and he worried he'd snap soon.

He heard a light, feminine laugh, and glanced up from his work briefly to see the Inquisitor leaning against the far wall, holding an armful of correspondence, likely for him. She must have slipped in not long ago, silent as a shadow.

"They even threw a parade. We managed to slip away during the festivities. Wouldn't have wanted to be around when they realized Rivaini forged the contract." Varric sighed, a wistful smile on his face. "She was always so capable when she couldn't find any rum."

He couldn't take it anymore. "Varric."

“Yeah, Curly?”

"Ignoring your particular brand of...literary embellishment...that couldn't possibly have happened."

Varric sat up straight, eyebrows raised in a sort of amused curiosity, and feigned a level of innocence that normally made the dwarf charming, but was currently irritating to Cullen on a deeply personal level. "Oh?"

Cullen dropped his quill and made an irritated gesture, trying to narrow down which detail to impose reason on first. "For one thing, brown bears aren't native to the Free Marches. Hawke couldn't have told the Duchess to use it as her champion if there wasn't one around."

Varric blinked. "His name was Ser Reginald, and he was from Highever. Weren't you listening to a word I said?" he deadpanned.

The wave crested.

Predictably, he snapped, letting out a string of curses and rude attacks against the man with unfair vehemence. Even as it happened, he knew it was wrong. Typically, Varric's companionship was a welcome distraction from the pressure of his station. Today, though, nothing seemed to assuage his frustration, and he had taken it out on his friend.

The wave crashed, spreading its cooled waters across the shore of his mind, washing away the anger as quickly as it had risen.

"That was unworthy of me," he sighed, leaning back in his seat and bringing a gloved hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Forgive me."

For a long time, no one spoke. He could hear the Inquisitor cross the room with quiet steps and set the pile of paper on the corner of his desk, pour him a cup of water, and set it firmly in front of him. It was a kind gesture. That it was the Inquisitor who did it made him feel even more wretched.

"When is the last time you slept?" Varric asked at last, his voice holding the same gentle resonance it did when the dwarf spoke to Cole.

Cullen was surprised he spoke at all. Varric was quiet enough, and he harsh enough, that he assumed the selectively stealthy rogue had departed so that Trevelyan may scold him. Instead, Varric's rare moment of solemnity surprised Cullen into answering truthfully.

"Three days. I can't bring myself to... I have..." he gestured vaguely, hoping the dwarf would somehow understand, putting together the pieces of poor explanation and the fragments of information made available to the Inquisitor's Inner Circle.

As it turned out, he _did_ understand. Or Cullen had a particularly telling face. He couldn't be sure.

"If you want...I have this distilled essence..." He brought his hands up, placating, when he saw the way Cullen tensed, "Completely non-magical! I order it from back home. It's pretty hard to find around here. But you put a few drops of it in your wine or tea or whatever before bed. Helps put you out pretty hard. It helped me after...well...after the Chantry..." he trailed off, as unwilling to finish his half-explanation as Cullen had been.

"It makes your dreams more vivid. But they're always good ones. That might be better than...you know."

“Varric...” the Inquisitor began. She didn't finish, but the hard line of her brow told him she disapproved. It was the first thing she had said since she entered his office.

Cullen continued to rub the bridge of his nose. The offer was tempting, especially the promise of peaceful rest. But what if it didn't work? What if he had all the vividness this sleeping draught promised but the nightmares still came? He didn't think he could-

Varric interrupted the paranoid argument he was holding between himself and his sleep deprived brain. "Look, Curly, we both know you need a clear head to win a war. There's no room for mistakes here. You should catch some shut eye. I'm sure the Seeker will wake you if anything comes up."

He winced, knowing a scolding from Cassandra was absolutely not something he wanted to have, and so nodded his agreement. "Um. Yes. Please. I would...I would appreciate that."

Varric seemed to take this as dismissal and slipped from his office, closing the door behind him.

“Yesterday, you told me you were fine.” Trevelyan said, turning to him after Varric departed, her cadence filled with accusation and compassion in equal measure.

“I-”

“You lied. To me.”

He winced again, both at the disappointment he read in her face and the hurt she kept hidden behind it. The two of them were polar opposites. As such, their relationship had not been an easy one to cultivate, but the one trait they shared was that trust was not something that came easy to either of them. They had settled into an amicable friendship since their arrival at Skyhold, however, and now he had betrayed the trust she had placed in him. A million possible excuses tumbled through his aching head, like rocks rolling beneath the surf, but they all sounded feigned or weak in his mind, so he remained silent beneath her steady scrutiny.

“This draught of Varric's...do you think it will help curb the side effects of your withdrawal?”

He doubted it. He had disclosed to her that he experienced nightmares and would be woken by sudden pain, but he downplayed the frequency of such occurrences.

“I don't know,” he confessed, at last. “As long as it brings me some peace at night, it hardly matters.”

She watched him and he shifted, uncomfortable under a gaze that held him a touch too long. “Then I hope your dreams are as good as Varric claims. I'll leave you to your work. Goodnight, Commander.”

He nodded at her as she, too, slipped from his office. He hoped desperately for the same thing.

 

* * *

 

_Confusion and subdued terror warred for the forefront of his cognizance as he tried to navigate through halls that would shift and roll, unsteady in their presentation. Innocents screamed from elsewhere in the Circle, but where he had expected their cries to drown out his thoughts, the sound of them was muted by the haze. Blood spilled and pooled across stone floors. Uldred and Meredith laughed as they chased him through a complex he had never seen. He found sanctuary in a room that looked like his quarters in Kirkwall, but smaller, only to be confronted by the horror of a shriek racing towards him, falling atop his person and reaching for his face, even as he brought up his sword._

He woke suddenly, his panic surging at the tangible feel of the demon bestride him. His hand shot to the side of his bed in search of his sword while the other reached up in the dark, groping blindly until he found a shoulder, then a neck, and squeezed. Having been roused so recently, he only managed to voice his distress with a vicious snarl at the demon. It shifted above him, then went still beneath his fingers, even as they clamped down, drawing a startled gasp from its throat. Hands, gentle and cool, closed around his forearm, but didn't try to pry away his hand. His other hand, unable to find his sword's handle, instead flew back to the figure in the dark, fumbling until he caught a bare upper arm, and he forced his mind to concentrate as he held onto the figure with a firm grip.

It whimpered beneath the pressure he exerted on its skin, but the sound was feminine and alarmed, drawing his attention to further details, like the smaller, more human frame.

_Oh..._

His mind still benumbed by recent slumber, the grim realization settled over him in a haze. He was still dreaming. But it wasn't a shriek that threatened to haunt his nightmares tonight. It was Desire.

"You think to tempt me, demon?" he hissed at the shadow. "You will never-"

He blinked as the dream was thrown into further focus. He noticed the way the figure held herself slightly tense above him, her cool hands stroking his forearm, the gesture one of comfort, not attack. A pulse, quickened by adrenaline, beat beneath his fingers. Skin, soft and slightly scented with lilies, felt real to him, the details corporeal instead of the intangible obscurity common to sleep's illusions. He couldn't see anything beside the nearly indiscernible outline of her against the faint light of the stars that trickled in through the hole in his roof, but the silhouette he saw was more human than demon. Beneath his hand, the gentle rise and fall of her chest brushing against his forearm announced the shallow breathing of something entirely _not_ a demon. It was a small point, but it helped waylay his initial, drowsy theory nonetheless.

Familiar sheets and pillows were beneath him and marked the setting as his bedroom in Skyhold, not a terrifying dreamscape. It was enough for his grip to loosen slightly, his own heartbeat beginning to slow, and his anxiety giving way to confusion. Without candles, it was too dark for him to make out the features of the figure he held and, so impaired, he allowed his old Templar training to surface as he focused his other senses further. That was when the more distressing details of the scenario unfolded in front of him, all at once.

He was in bed, naked, the habit one he adopted recently when the feel of nightshirts triggered a feeling of being restrained. Entirely atypical, however, was the shadow of a woman above him, and _the way_ she straddled his hips. Silky thighs were resting against his, as bare as his own, and he released her throat in surprise. He blamed sleep for dulling his reason and leaving him without full control of his hands as, unbidden, they dropped to her shoulders, then her waist, in a hesitant exploration of what exactly was in his lap.

And suddenly, he became _very_ aware of the fine gauziness of her shift and how the thin fabric hid none of her very warm, very feminine heat from him.

_Oh..._

It was one of _those_ dreams.

In the back of his mind, he chided himself for how quickly anxiety and terror were replaced with interest and lust, how veins that had run cold suddenly flared with heat, sending a coil of desire straight downwards, making him grow hard between them. The shadow sighed in the dark, the sound halfway to a moan. He didn't understand it. Was it acquiescence? Expectation?

Silently, he was thankful for it, so that it was not only the percussion of his heart against his ribcage making sounds in the cloying dim. He pulled his hands from her, shifting until he was partially up. He was fatigued from the day, even with the wakefulness that came with growing arousal, but it wasn't enough to abate his curiosity. She _felt_ so real, holding herself calmly there, in his lap. Was she?

"Who are-" he began, his voice slightly slurred from sleep, but more rough than usual. She stopped him with a firm press of fingers against his lips, the gesture one of wordless insistence that he not speak. Frowning against her fingertips, he opened his mouth to speak again but her hands had dropped to his chest, her fingers taking a moment to splay across his skin, and he heard her hum in what he thought was approval. She didn't allow him time to feel the flattery of it, however, opting instead to shove him, forcefully, back against the pillows behind him.

He swallowed hard in the dark, embarrassed by the way his ardour ramped up its intensity in ravenous anticipation. What he had expected next, he couldn't be sure, but it was not the way she found his face in the dark and stroked the line of his cheekbone with her knuckles, the caress both gentle and hesitant, a wordless questioned posited in the dead of night. That a dream would beg permission in _his own sex dream_ startled a laugh from him. Still, he was too hungry to be denied now, and indulged her by catching her hand with his and planting a heated kiss against her inner wrist.

" _What_ are you?" he asked, breathless but undeterred. Or he was, right up until she rolled her hips in the most sinful way and he forgot how to breathe. Abandoning his interrogation entirely, he allowed his hands to return to her body, his fingertips trailing up over her stomach, up between full breasts he promised himself he'd take advantage of momentarily, up further until he was tracing over a delicate, pronounced collarbone, and finally he was able to cup a pointed chin. She didn't answer aloud, but when he ran a thumb across her lips, he felt them pull into a half smile that he knew... _he knew_...was mischievous even if he couldn't see it.

" _Yours_ ," she whispered, almost silent, but he almost lost control at her very utterance of so erotic a promise. His. She wasn't merely a dream...she was _his_ dream...an offer of pleasure aimed at the basest parts of his mind, hinting at the ecstasy he could feel if he were to satiate himself with her. _In_ her. Then, a quick and agile tongue flicked from between her lips and swiped across his thumb, and the coil of his desire twisted tight.

He grabbed her by the hips and twisted, rolling until she fell upon his bed with a startled cry and he upon her with a disquiet moan. He settled between her legs, smirking at the way she writhed beneath him, crying out when he ground the hard length of his cock against the apex of her thighs. He seized the opportunity her distraction offered him to find her lips in the dark and claim them for his own, only to growl in hunger at the needy little groan she made against his mouth.

Everything blurred together in the dizzying frisson of quickly escalating passion. Fingers and palms searched across every inch of skin available to him. He explored the line of her throat with his mouth, seeking out every spot that drew an impassioned whimper. Hands travelled to full breasts he wished he could see. Instead, he mapped them fervently with his fingertips, the calloused pads of his thumbs swiping roughly over pebbled nipples, their path followed by the flicking and laving of his tongue. He delighted in the taste of her skin, the slight bitterness of perfume mixed with a fine sheen of sweat that made him want to delve into every valley she had to offer. But already she was panting, her hips struggling to rub against him intimately despite how thoroughly he had pinned her to the bed, and _sweet Maker_ was _that_ making him impatient to be inside her.

He allowed himself to find the hem of her ridiculous nightshift and drag it up over her thighs, but the fabric didn't come easy, and ripped. And he really _would have_ felt guilty about it except this was _his_ fantasy and he was _busy_ groping ardently over velvet skin. Their panting and moans were interrupted by his animalistic growl when his fingers found she was wearing _only_ that nightshift, her sex so easily available to him. Something inside him pulled taut at this discovery, and he made the decision to be entirely done with conscious thought.

Said decision was his undoing, however, for she bucked against him, using his distraction to force him back onto the bed, until he was beneath her once more in a move his lust addled brain was too slow to follow. And he would have complained, but his hands had already flown to her ass, and _Andraste preserve him_ was it exquisite. Still, he didn't allow her to completely dominate their momentum, and he took her hips in a bruising grip, forcing her hard against him, suddenly filled with carnal furor when he felt her slit, wet and warm, slide along his painfully hard length, the thin fabric of her shift no longer separating them. The head of his cock brushed against her pearl and swept back, catching at her entrance, and _Fuck..._ His breath hitched in his throat when he felt how slick and swollen and _open_ she was for him.

She shoved him back onto the mattress once more, planting her hands on his chest and using him as the leverage she needed to cant her hips in a way that... _Maker._ He had to fight for control when he heard her take a ragged breath before she finally allowed her hips to fall.

He grunted at the tight fit she made around him, already threatening to spill into her. His hips jerked upwards, thrusting roughly into her body, using his grip on her hips to pull her harder onto him. Someone whimpered...it may have been her...but he couldn't be sure because he was too busy thinking how fucking _perfect_ she was, taking his cock as if it belonged there. It certainly _felt_ like it belonged there, and before he fully realized it, he was buried deep.

He felt her arc above him, heard her appreciative sigh, and before he had caught his breath, she was already moving over him, riding him at a pace that conveyed her own hunger, her own urgency. She shuddered at the particularly deep thrusts he made into her, a lewd little whine escaping her when he used his position to take advantage of her breasts.

It was no longer clear if his mind was cloudy from sleeping draught or if he was simply addled by the unadulterated sensuality of this fantasy. He found the reason hardly mattered in the face of this delicious friction, of the way his flesh dragged against hers, claiming every inch of her tight channel. In passion he found clarity, the realization that the darkness of his room was not a hindrance but a welcome mask he could use to shed the mantle of his nightmares and position of command. He could allow himself to be delirious and frenzied, encouraged by the way he reduced her to trembling and the way the dark made everything more intense. He couldn't see, but he didn't need to. Not when his world could narrow to touch and taste and sound and the mental images he could conjure of a mystery woman, her head thrown back in ecstasy, every sensation heightened by this circumstantial blindness.

It wasn't long before he felt the telltale spiral of sensation and fire bloom inside him, his pleasure mounting in steady waves and _Maker_ if he had known his headache earlier foreshadowed a nighttime dream _like this_ , he wouldn't have snapped at Leliana's scouts quite so much. He started to hear a low hum in his mind, reminding him of lightning storms on stormy seas, and knew this carnal panacea would end far too soon. Every rise and swell of her hips forced his body to quicken further. Too quick. And he knew he didn't stand a chance at leashing his control this time, its arrival as predictable as the tide. Then he heard the way her breath stuttered haltingly and realized it won't matter because she's _there_.

She crested and crashed, her rhythm faltered, frenetic, as she rode him through her completion. And that was the first moment he wished he could _really_ see her, to drink in the sight of her face and body as she threw her head back in release, and the very idea of it drew the coil of his control tight. _If I dream this again,_ he promised himself, thrusting hard into her yielding heat. Then again, more harried. On the third, he groaned, feeling the orgasm sear through him like flames, his ecstasy a flare in the darkness. He thought he heard himself swear as he spent inside her, while the dream-Siren rode him through the softer waves.

He must have lost the dream somewhere between her moving off of him and the two of them having caught their breath, because he came awake at the feel of her pulling away, leaving the bed. Far away, the dawn had begun to rise, and the room only grew light enough to make out a hazy outline in the dim. He thought he reached out in an attempt to catch her wrist, but it was either too dark or the dawn had made her incorporeal, because his hands fumbled and caught at nothing.

 

* * *

 

Awareness came back to him slowly, followed near immediately by a mild sense of annoyance. He felt himself frown before he even opened his eyes, the grumpy response triggered by the sound of someone calling his name from below the hatch to his loft. He countered the pull to the waking world by reaching beside him, but found the spot dishearteningly empty, so he rolled onto his stomach to press his face into the soft, down of the pillow. If he ignored the voice below, and wished really hard, he could swear he smelled the faintest hint of lilies against the sheet.

The person seemed undeterred by his rebellion to get up, however, and called out again, louder this time.

His frown deepened against the pillow when he placed the voice. It was the eternally nervous Scout Jenkins, who had a tendency to interrupt him whenever something good was happening. Like pleasant conversations or the best night's sleep he'd had in months.

“Commander?” he called, once more, and Cullen felt the irritation rise and snap.

_“What?!”_ he growled.

It was a moment before he heard from the scout again, but this time, the man's voice trembled. “I-it's nearly midday, Commander. Your presence is requested in the War Room.”

He groaned, internally forgiving the man for pulling him from sleep, but still too annoyed to voice such an apology. _Midday?_

“I'll be there shortly,” he called, then winced when he realized that still sounded like a growl. Now, Leliana was going to mock-threaten him with assassination.

He _thought_ it was mock-threatening, anyway.

Reluctantly, he pulled himself out of bed, relying on the unconscious memory of putting on clothes and armor and running a hand through disheveled hair to get him presentable for the meeting. His real thoughts were on other things, like the vivid feel of his sex dream, and the decision he had to make about whether he wanted to kill Varric or ask for more of the dwarf's sleeping draught...


	2. Does This Mean I Win?

“You're not on top of your game today, Cullen.” Iron Bull's deep bass sounded vaguely judgmental, and he captured one of Cullen's towers, as if to emphasize that very point.

Cullen was thankful for the blast of cool mountain wind that drowned out the sound of his heavy sigh. The Qunari had forced him to abandon yet another long term plan of attack and start anew. Normally, the strategic game would help him focus, quiet his mind until the relentless waves of withdrawal were not the intimidating swells of a violent sea but the gentle lapping of peaceful water against a smooth shore. Instead, he found himself being pulled away from reality by daydreams.

He, Iron Bull, and Dorian were taking turns playing chess in the pharmaceutical garden. It was closer to the main hall than Cullen would prefer to be right now, considering the recent arrival of more nobles to Skyhold. With nobility came their inevitable attempts to _talk_ to him, and so he preferred to be “very busy” in places that were “off limits to the general public” during their visits. Today, however, Dorian had managed to find him and drag him away, insisting on a game of chess somewhere pleasant. Cullen had caved in the end, won over by the Dorian's promise that he “would absolutely not cheat this time, really,” and let himself be whisked away.

It may have helped that spending time with “That Tevinter Mage” meant Orlesian diplomats avoided their corner of the garden like the plague.

If their behavior and avoidance bothered Dorian, the man never mentioned it, opting instead to share graphic, inappropriate rumours he had heard about the Inquisition's leadership. Cullen suspected that at least half of said rumours had been fabricated by the mage right then and there in an attempt to throw him off his game. It may have even worked, had Cullen not grown up with three very loud siblings, one of whom was more of an insufferable chess partner than Dorian, and his sensitivity to taunting had thus been deadened long ago. When Dorian found this tactic ineffective, he had resorted to cheating... _again_...until Iron Bull had wandered by and Cullen had practically begged him for a game. Aside from the Inquisitor herself and Solas, he was one of the few people that offered a real challenge.

He winced when Bull followed his previous capture by taking one of his bishops. Unfortunately, offering a “real challenge” today meant “ruthlessly crushing” him two games in a row now.

“You're distracted,” Bull continued. “Making mistakes. Your mid-game isn't as aggressive as it normally is. You're usually slower to allow your bishops to be sacrificed. And you let yourself get dragged out of your office. By _Dorian_.”

Dorian made an indignant noise, which they both ignored.

“So...what's distracting you?”

“I'm _not_ distracted,” Cullen grumbled.

Which was an extravagant lie of the highest order.

It had been four nights since his intensely lucid erotic dream. For the three nights afterward, he had taken the sleeping draught Varric had given him. It was only moderately effective. His nightmares and the disturbance that withdrawal inflicted on him didn't disappear, but they seemed muted and dull, as if his mind was going through the motion of having terrifying dreams without any of the emotional backing. The rest, more than he'd had in recent memory, was a balm on a mind overworked by duty and a body tired from time spent training soldiers. He knew he should get around to thanking Varric for it. He owed the dwarf a debt for offering him a reprieve from tormented sleep, at least.

He should have felt more grateful.

Except he was too _distracted_ to be grateful.

The shadow had not found him again. The morning after it had happened, he imagined that he could barely catch the scent of her in his sheets, the hint of lilies being blown away by the frosty mountain air. He had been far too embarrassed to ask Varric if the sleeping draught was crafted to induce erotic hallucinations, deciding instead to experiment with the potion on his own. Despite his efforts, he was never visited upon by any bold apparitions. Thus, he attributed the dream to his mind acting out for having endured so long without being intimate with a real woman, and he committed his efforts to putting the memory of that sensual umbra behind him.

He failed. Miserably.

Over the last few days, he would grow restless in the quiet hours of the evening, resorting to pacing the length of his office to keep his mind from flying, unbidden, to the prospect of the oncoming night and the shadows that grew there. The endless barrage of reports and the necessity of forming battle strategies would only keep his attention for so long. Then, inevitably, he would imagine he saw the vague outline of her in a deeper shadow, or would remember the sound of her, sighing in pleasure, even when his headache would drown out other noise.

“Cullen?” asked Iron Bull.

Where lyrium and its effects once preyed on him, now he found himself haunted by the dark. The suggestive potential that every shadow had of manifesting itself into something from a sordid fantasy. He wished the lecherous thoughts would leave him...yet he longed for her to appear once more. On the second night she hadn't appeared, he had lain awake for over an hour, his hand venturing to his shaft, and he stroked himself to the memory of her riding him, coming undone when he imagined the way she would explore him with her mouth.

“It's your turn, Cullen,” Bull prompted.

His eyes drifted to the board but he didn't see the pieces. His hands clenched tight, making the leather of his gloves creak. How was he supposed to play chess, concentrate on his work, when his hands remembered the feel her skin as if she had been a living being? How could so ridiculous a dream become so dangerous a distraction...one that he sought out? For the last few nights he had fallen asleep with a single candle alight in his room in a foolish hope that by making the shadows more exaggerated she'd appear.

He picked up his knight and toyed with it momentarily, before making a move that made little sense in terms of strategy, ignoring the way Dorian and Iron Bull glanced at him, then each other. They probably thought he was mad.

Maybe he _was_ mad.

He only knew that he'd rather be haunted by ecstasy than lyrium or flashbacks. Neither was healthy or reasonable, but only one would he allow himself to be destroyed over.

Maker, he _prayed_ for such destruction.

Cole appeared out of nowhere, sitting on his knees too close to the board, the wide brim of his hat threatening to knock over the pieces closest to him. Cullen jerked in his seat, the spirit boy's appearance ripping him away from the fantasy that had been threatening to overwhelm him. Dorian jolted, too. Bull didn't, but Cullen liked to imagine that he was still unnerved, but wasn't showing it out of a sense of pride.

“Cullen is going to lose because he thinks, I think, about the knights. Or the nights. They're all twisted together, but he wants them both.”

“Yes. That makes as much sense as usual,” Cullen sighed. Next to him, Dorian and Bull chuckled, likely overjoyed to have the spirit boy inside someone else's head for a change.

“She waits for you to put out the candle. Are you going to?” Cole asked.

“The what? Why would I do that?” he asked wearily, and distracted himself by deciding to have his remaining bishop retreat to be part of his king's defense. This may have been a poor choice on his part however, because Bull didn't hesitate to reach toward the board, leading Cullen to believe that he had fallen into a trap.

“She's a shadow, but you want to touch her. To taste and savour. She'll let you. Be your secret, safe and sensual. Shun the light and she'll sigh, soft and silky, like her skin.”

An accusatory silence followed.

Cullen closed his eyes and tried to tell himself that this was merely a strange nightmare, that Cole hadn't _really_ appeared out of nowhere and announced his lecherous thoughts to the last two people who would let said announcement pass without comment. He sent a silent plea to the Maker for mercy, praying for the possibility that _just this once_ , they'd ignore the spirit boy, favoring propriety over gossip, and allow him his privacy. He opened his eyes, hoping beyond reason for the miracle.

The Maker, however, had abandoned this world. Cullen, in particular.

Bull started to roar with laughter. “Ah hah! I _knew_ it was a woman. Only thing in the world that could get one of you types all up in their head like that!”

Dorian was leaning forward with an expression that could only be described as a sort of hungry _glee_ , his dark eyes glinting, looking very much like a cat about to pounce on its new, favorite toy. “Why _Commander_ ,” he said, his voice a low purr that rolled his rank in a way that managed to be both flippant and flirtatious at once. “Is there something _salacious_ you'd like to share with the class?”

“No,” Cullen said, quickly. Too quickly. Which only seemed to entice Dorian and Bull.

“Do you want to know what she thinks of you?” Cole asked, his expression one of childlike curiosity.

“Oh he _does_ , Cole! Tell us what she thinks of _him_.” Dorian said, leaning towards Cole in a way that was mischievous and predatory.

Cullen silently debated whether he'd prefer having this conversation or being tortured.

In the back of his mind, he found himself vaguely fearful to discover what Cole might hear from a mind that existed only in his dreams.

Unless it wasn't a fantasy... But no. It had to have been a dream. He wasn't so repressed that he would hide a liaison from the two men if pressed, but when said encounter took place entirely in his head...

The conversation needed to stop. Or better yet, never to have happened. “I... Um...No, Cole. That's...not necessary.”

“Why _not_?,” Dorian asked, incredulous.

“You _should_ ,” Cole whispered, before disappearing.

Cullen slouched in his seat and pretending to concentrate on chess. The other two men eyed him expectantly.

“So about this woman...” Dorian prompted, undeterred.

“We're in the middle of a game,” Cullen protested, pointedly ignoring how weak the excuse sounded in his own ears.

Bull waved a hand dismissively. “I have you in two to four. Now we know what's eating at you. The thing I'm curious about is _why_ it's eating at you.”

Dorian opened his mouth, likely to say something inappropriate, but Bull held up a finger at him for silence. The mage complied, but made his feelings on the matter known by crossing his arms over his chest and pouting dramatically.

Cullen surprised himself by answering honestly. “It's...complicated.”

“Uh huh,” Bull said, clearly skeptical. “And what exactly is complicated about 'soft and silky, like her skin'?”

Dorian's deep laugh echoed off the stone walls surrounding the garden. Cullen rubbed the back of his neck, hoping his blush couldn't be seen from across the yard, and desperately tried to think of an answer that wouldn't make him sound impaired.

“I...um...I don't actually know her name,” he said hesitantly. Suddenly, he wished he was back in his office, responding to reports, instead of trying to find the balance between too much and too little information.

Iron Bull roared another laugh. “You sly dog! Escaped an encounter without getting her name? I didn't think you had it in you.”

Dorian raised his eyebrows. “But you know who she is, I assume? Was she a tavern wench? A nobleman's daughter? Oh! Oh!” He clapped enthusiastically. “A nobleman's _wife_?”

“I...um... Maybe?”

The two men gave him twin looks of disbelief. “Fereldans,” Iron Bull said at last. “Completely oblivious to the finer details of life.”

“I quite agree with you there, my pungent friend,” Dorian announced, preening in a way that made Cullen think the mage was actually referring to himself.

“Maker's Breath. Can we talk about something else?” Cullen pleaded, growing still more uncomfortable.

Dorian looked as if he was about to argue rather heatedly about that, but Bull leaned back in his seat, as if physically backing away from the topic. “All right...can't force a man to talk about it if he doesn't want to.”

“Since _when_?” exclaimed Dorian. The other two men ignored him.

“It's drinking time anyway, so I'm going to hit the tavern. Some advice, Cullen? Whatever it is about this woman that's got you in knots...just go with it. Best thing in the world to be distracted by.”

“Well, if the Commander is going to be a spoilsport and keep all the delicious gossip to himself, I think I'll join you. I happen to know where Comtesse Helene stashed all her wine when she arrived at Skyhold yesterday.”

Cullen waved in wordless, dismissive farewell, having long since desired to be alone with his thoughts. He didn't return to his office for a long time afterward, however, instead walking across the ramparts and thinking about how best to misplace the matches he used to light the candle in his room.

 

* * *

 

_The halls of the Circle were empty. No screams echoed off the walls. No blood coated the flagstones. No demons rushed at him from around corners. Somehow, it only made the place seem more terrible. Even when he would return to this place, unwillingly brought back by the nightmares, it was full of sound, filled with life, tortured but present. Now they were all gone. Uldred had left him imprisoned here to be haunted by muted ghosts, their silent screams trapped in his head forever. He wandered the halls in quiet torment, pausing at the place that Uldred had fallen, but in place of a body was a lily, its luminescence keeping the darkest shadows at bay._

The world changed, righted itself, making him blink at the darkness until faint stars became visible through a hole in his tower's rooftop. The sheets pooled in his lap, cold against his heated skin. He felt lucid, as if he had control of his mind despite his slumber, and he had been pulled to present by something he couldn't quite sense now. The mystery of it set him on edge, encouraged him to reach out against the black with his other senses to let his hearing penetrate the dark in ways his eyes could not. He nearly closed his eyes again when he heard it, the sound of his wooden ladder creaking gently under the weight of someone climbing it, revealing their approach to his loft.

In an instant, he was partially up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, ready to stand if necessary. The oppressive gloom was much the same as it had been the night he had first taken the potion, and his eyes strained against it, seeking out any detail the night hadn't obfuscated. It didn't take long for him to find the shadow darker than the rest, its silhouette vague but unmistakably feminine, stepping into his room.

The same grogginess of last time didn't plague him now, but the sharpness of true wakefulness was absent. Still, this felt...more real. He could _swear_ he was awake. If he concentrated, he could catch the smell of her perfume, the faintest scent of lilies drifting to him from across the divide. It harkened him to the memory of their last encounter, sent him reeling from the potential that this one had, until he felt himself become adrift on waves of anxiety and arousal.

“You came... I wasn't sure if... Was it the candle?” He couldn't see if the shadow responded in any way, only that she stood utterly still, mere feet away from where he sat. Perhaps she hadn't expected him to speak to her.

Perhaps she hadn't expected him to seem so awake at all.

Maybe she was real and unsure of how to approach him. Or maybe Varric's potion simply gave him more power over his dreams now than in the nightmares of nights past.

He cleared his throat, ridding his voice of the vestiges of deeper sleep before he spoke. “Come here.”

As if he had willed her into motion, she approached him slowly, her steps slight against his floor, each beat of sound threatening to overwhelm him with the memory of her moving above him, the sounds of their pleasure filling his room as if they were a tangible thing. She seemed startled when he reached out, unthinking, and caught her wrist in the dark, pulling her suddenly between his spread thighs, trapping her with his legs.

Thicker fabric than last time brushed against his skin. She was wearing a robe, light but crafted of something decadent and soft. He hummed in curiosity. Did dreams even get cold? Or was this his lascivious imagination, conjuring an outfit that could easily be removed?

“What _are_ you?” he asked. “Real? A dream?”

“ _Yours_ ,” she whispered, as she had the first night. He closed his eyes, allowed the gravity of it to settle in his chest, desire swelling from the way she said it, so fervid and revering.

_His_. His to seek solace with, to forget the pain of withdrawal. His to be distracted by, to interrupt the chaos that was slowly wearing him down.

His to seek pleasure in, with which to satisfy any mortal urge.

Whether she turned out to be real or not, maybe it didn't matter. She was a far cry better than the pained delirium and unending nightmares of countless nights past and, by the Maker, he would enjoy it...enjoy _her_...while it lasted.

" _Off_ ," he demanded tugging at the sleeve of her robe, surprised by the steadiness in his voice, at the way it held more a command than a request, coloured by a longing he was barely keeping leashed.

As if to assuage his guilt, a quiet, breathy laugh filled the air. The ties at her waist flicked against his chest as she disrobed, making him swallow at such unquestioning willingness. It was followed by the sound of fabric sliding from her shoulders only to make an elicit note against the floor as it landed at their feet.

A dream. It had to be a dream, for him to know that she was standing naked before him even though he couldn't see her. She leaned into him, cool and agile fingers coasting over his shoulders, his neck, until they laced themselves in his hair and fisted, forcing his head back.

She kissed him, drank from his lips as if it were a confession and a demand all at once, the heat of it infused by immediate desire. She commanded him with that kiss the way he commanded his troops, as if she had won authority over him, directing him as if it were her very right.

It may have been true before, or would be on another night, but he just spent three lonely nights considering what he wanted to do to her, and he found her wrist in the dark, grabbed, and pulled, all but throwing her to the bed as he reversed their positions.

“Oh, no,” he said, when he heard her try to scramble backwards, his voice roughened by the heavy resonance of lust churning beneath the surface. It stilled her long enough for him to find her legs, to use the backs of her knees to drag her towards him, to spread her open to him so that he might fall upon her, starved and carnal.

Pressed against her, he could feel every inch of delicious skin, could confirm her nudity in the way her breasts pressed against the hard planes of chest, in the way her hips were absent of anything for him to be hindered by, no gauzy nightshift for him to tear away. He made a sound of approval at this find, at the way the delights of her body were so unguarded, accessible to his hands that wanted to wander, to the quickly hardening length of him where it rested between them. He felt her try to find his face in the dark for a kiss, felt her shift beneath him in a way that... Maker. The room itself grew hotter with the escalation of his heartbeat.

He stilled. Groaned. Dropped his face against her neck. He had to. It was the only alternative he had to giving in to primal, base urges, to suddenly end his plan to question her and instead satiate himself with her right then. A shuddering breath escaped him, helped him refocus his mind and quiet the voice inside him that wanted to take her now, now, _Maker, now_.

“Minx,” he accused when he recovered, somewhat. She had offered herself to him like some carnal fantasy made manifest in the shadows, but he would not allow his hasty siren any of the same advantages she had last time. _This_ time was his. _She_ was his. And he was going to make her _pay_ for the last few days of torment he had suffered, would drive her to distraction the way she had driven him to obsess over every patch of shade.

_Later_ , he told himself. Later, he would sort out just how he was supposed to drive his own dream mad. Right now, he was busy, all his attention in his hands as he found her face in the dark, cupped her jaw and forced her head to the side to access to her delicate throat, in his lips as he pressed them against her skin in a wet and hungry kiss, leaving a mark he knew was there but couldn't see, in his hands as they quested downwards, sliding past her hips to grope shamelessly at her ass.

“Tell me you are more than a fantasy,” he murmured against her neck, pulling her hips harder against him, rubbing her explicitly against his shaft. He could hear her sharp inhalation, the moan that halted against her tongue by a bite at her lip, could feel the hint of air moving against his cheek, the brush of her hair against him signifying the slight shake of her head.

“Tell me you're more than a dream,” he growled, dissatisfied with her lack of answer. His hands raked upwards roughly, to cup full breasts that reacted beautifully to his touch, her nipples hardening under his thumb as he traced a lazy circle around one, then the other. Her answer this time was a shuddered breath, her form stilling beneath his bold exploration as he mapped what he couldn't see, even when he ventured more by pinching those stiffened peaks. It wasn't until his tongue flicked against a straining nipple that she answered, not in words, but with a heated cry that broke across the reticent dark of his room.

“You feel too real to be a dream,” he continued, his breath a warm current flowing across the trail he had made with his tongue. He felt the muscles in her stomach tense at this, and so he followed them, his kisses trailing lower until he pressed another kiss against her hipbone, delighting in the way she twitched, as if vaguely ticklish.

It wasn't enough. He wasn't sure what _would_ have been enough in a scenario of his own making, he only knew that she had tested the chains of his control, made him question his very world. Now she writhed, shameless and sinful, but steady. He wanted to reduce her to fevered panting, to see the same wild and stormy sea she had turned him into reflected back at him in the way she moaned. He wouldn't give in until he saw it, heard her impassioned cries aloud instead of in his head.

Her startled gasp ended up being muffled against one of his pillows when he flipped her on to her stomach, and pulled her hips into the air.

“You're more than that, aren't you?” He punctuated his query by sweeping the calloused pads of two fingers along the line her sex, dipping between the folds of arousal-slicked skin. He pressed, caressed, finding and working her hardened pearl before drawing back to trace the edge of her entrance. When his fingers sank into her at last, he had to tighten his hold on her hips, to hold her still as his fingers pushed and withdrew, her body wanting to yield, to bend, to accept more and buck obscenely against his hand. Still she didn't answer.

He asked again, this time by kneeling, by his fingers trading places with his tongue, as he pressed a kiss against sharp sweetness. He reveled in the way she jerked and whimpered, her breathing desperate and urgent in the wake of his tongue parting her. He held her splayed for him, a feast for him, as his thumbs spread her farther, allowing him more access to explore with sharp darts and broad strokes. When he felt the tension of her draw too tight, felt her movement become too untamed, he pulled away, receded like the morning tide, and chuckled at the soft sound of her hands fisting in his sheets, the fabric creaking as her grip forced it to stretch.

“You _taste_ like more than that.” Another muffled moan was pressed into his mattress, followed by yet another when his fingers returned. He eased them into her at a pace that was intentionally too slow, relishing the feel of a bead of moisture trickling over his hand, at the twitch of the muscles in her legs as she tried to remain still. He heard her panting, felt her draw taut then try to relax, and _Maker_ , she was driving him insane, every pitched sigh made him _crave_ the feeling of being inside her. He tested her by pulling away once more, smirked when she practically sobbed at the loss of stimulation.

“ _You pig!_ ” she hissed, the whispered words rushed, steeped in impatient lust. It was the first thing beside that other word she had said to him, the frustrated accusation as startling as it was flattering to his ego. He laughed none-too-quietly, pressing a pair of kisses against her lower back.

“You haven't answered my question,” he pointed out, smirking against her skin when he heard her muffle a belligerent curse into his mattress. His fingers returned momentarily and they both moaned, her at the return of his hands and him how enticingly wet and open she was for him. It was too much. He decided to try a more direct line of questioning.

“Do you want me?” he asked, his voice rough now, its coherency breaking. He slid his fingers from within her, too ravenous now to continue his game. She made a breathless sound that he _thought_ was confirmation and so he shifted until he was kneeling behind her, hand briefly stroking across her back and tempting ass, muttering his approval, before he guided the hard length of him to her sex.

“Like this?” he teased, quickly becoming too distracted by the feel of her, by the welcoming warmth that met him as he pressed the broad tip of himself against her, his body too taut at the feel of his hands on her hips, canting them upwards until she was best splayed to receive him.

“ _Maker_ , yes. _Yes-_ ” she said, the words all rushed together into a plea, a prayer, a keening invocation. His confirmation now clear, he ended both their anticipation as, with another approving growl, his hands tightened on her hips and he used his grip to pull her back against him, and _fuck... Fuck_...he would _die_ before he ever got tired _this_ , the feel of his cock pushing the tight walls of her open, the arch of her back as she strained to take that first thrust, the sound of her gasp when he hilted inside her.

_Maker_ , that perfect warmth, that beckoning tightness, it tested the limits of his self-control, forced him to wonder if his own damn fantasy could possibly be disappointed in him if she brought him to completion too soon, because _oh_... The _sound_ of her as he withdrew and returned, called home by the pull of her, by the way her hips tilted submissively beneath his onslaught, and her attempts to writhe on his cock despite the way he held her still, leaving her no escape from their mutual pleasure. She gasped, panted, _pleaded_ until she was trembling, the explicit details lost to him as he gloried in the song of her body, its music too perfect to be real, too vivid to be an apparition.

Gentleness between them fell away, replaced with the pursuit of abandoning himself to her, the wickedness of her body driving his passion to aggressive heights. He wished he could see it, the place where they connected, the sight of his cock sinking into her, claiming every inch of her in the most intimate way. He settled for mapping the curve of her ass, his hands outlining valleys and borders, codifying a mental depiction of her to keep him during the day. He traced and charted, memorized the feel of her velvet skin while their shaky breaths filled his room, only to be echoed by the sound of his hips crashing against hers, and the needy little cries she made at his deeper thrusts.

He knew it the moment she exploded for him, felt her seize, her legs tightening beside his, relished the sound she made as the spasm overtook her entirely. Her pleasure encouraged his, winding him tighter, _tighter_ , the tide of his desire fed by her every shivering motion, the roll of her hips and the bow of her back.

There was a time earlier tonight when he may have resisted the call of her body, a time when he would have felt guilty over demanding pleasure right after she appeared. A better man, a _less wanton_ man would have been ashamed at the way he swore under his breath and rode her hard. But not him. Not now. Not when he had lost all ambition save for chasing the build of his pleasure.

He felt it then, the lightning searing down his spine, conscious thought evaporating like ocean mist beneath the flare of the sun. He spread her wider, forced her against his mattress with every delirious thrust he made, plunging into her, again, again, and _again_ until he _came_ , his pleasure crashing hard against the shores of her own, filling her with all the frustration she had inspired.

It was a long moment before, light headed, he eased the grip he had on her hips and slid from inside her, allowing her to rest more comfortably against his mattress. He collapsed beside her onto his stomach with a weary huff, having exhausted himself during the day, and now with her.

"Maker...you'll be the death me," he muffled against his pillow.

Beside him, he heard her laugh, still breathless from the exertion he had inflicted on her. Then the mattress shifted slightly as she rolled towards him, a silky leg brushing against the back of one of his, caressing him as it rode up over his thigh, followed by the press of luscious breasts against the skin of his back. She placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned in, planting a kiss against a shoulder blade.

He groaned.

The _way_ she did it... The huffs of warm breath against his skin, denoting an inaudible chuckle. A press of lips that were a little too sexy, pulled into a grin that was a little too sinful, and held there a little too long. It was another promise, one that both confirmed his complaint and made him harden anew.

He hadn't seen anything yet.

Another groan escaped him, and he rolled back to her, delighting in the little squeal of surprise she made, delighting further when he made it _her_ turn to groan, as he slid between her splayed thighs and took her again.

**Author's Note:**

> A _very_ special thank you to B, [Ciarasteina](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciarasteina), and [Crystallyne](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystallyne), who were only able to help correct my use of grammatical tenses through brutal team effort and bloodshed. I would never be able to publish anything without you all!


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